Belt hook package



Sept. 6, 1949. E. P. CLAUS 2,481,085

BELT HOOK PACKAGE Filed Oct. 16, 1946 avwwm Patented Sept. 6, 1949 UNITED STATES ra'rsm OFFICE BELT HOOK PACKAGE Erwin P. Claus, Waterbury, Conn, assignor to The Bristol Company, Waterbury, Conn., a corporation of Connecticut Application October 16, 1946, Serial No. 703,562

2 Claims.

This invention relates to belt hook packages and particularly to an improved package structure designed to protect the sharpened prongs of the belt hooks, and to prevent them from pricking the fingers of persons handling the same.

The invention is particularly concerned with belt hooks of the wire type which are carried on a tubular support adapted to be cut off to proper lengths for attachment to the ends of a belt to be secured or laced together. Such belt hooks are customarily attached to the free end of a belt to be joined by the use of a clamp or vice which forces the prongs into the belt surface so as to form a plurality of loops projecting from the end of the belt and adapted to cooperate with a similar set of loops formed by the belt hooks attached to the other end of the belt. Consequently a pin, leather thong or bolt can be passed through these overlapping sets of loops to secure the belt ends together.

Packages as above described are formed in several ways, i. e. either with oneor two-piece supports, and with either open or closed sides adjacent the pronged ends of the hooks. Twopiece supports require more steps in assembly than one-piece supports and consequently tend to be more expensive. Supports having a closed side are troublesome to prepare for attachment to a belt because the side of the support must be opend and this often results in disarranging the hooks and, hence, in lose of the particular package. Consequently the present improvement is intended to take advantage of the best features of both the above types without any of the disadvantages.

It is to be pointed out that ordinarily packages of the type under consideration are furnished in long strips which are placed in cartons. Inasmuch as the ends of the prongs are very sharp and the supports on which they are placed are generally open on the side where the prongs are located, the packages frequently become entangled, making their removal difficult without damaging the same by disarranging the hooks, and also frequently causing the fingers of the person attempting to remove the package to be pricked by the sharpened prong ends. The principal object of the present invention is to provide a simplified one-piece structure which overcomes all of these disadvantages while concurrently 2 simplifying the manufacture of the assembly. Numerous other advantages will appear from the following description when it is read in connection with the accompanying drawing in which:

Figure 1 is the side view of one form of belt hook package embodying the invention;

Figure 2 is a vertical sectional View on the line 22 of Figure 1',

Figure 3 is the bottom plan view of the completed package.

Referring to the drawing, reference character 5 designates a tubular support preferably formed from a fiat bank of sheet material bent to polygonal cross-section as indicated in Figure 2. This closed polygon, as indicated, has six flat sides, one of those sides being centrally slit as at 6 to define two coextensive closely abutting flexible flaps T and 8 capable of being bent inwardly as indicated in dotted lines in Figure 2.

Embracing the tubular support 5 are a plurality of spaced belt hooks 9, each comprising a curved apex and side arms terminating in prongs, arranged in alternating relation so as to provide, when assembled, two rows, the inner row being indicated l0 and the outer row being indicated 1 l in Figure 2. Thus it appears that in assembled form the prongs Ill and II are disposed adjacent the side of the polygon where the slit 6 appears. As will be readily understood, the flaps 1 and 8 can be bent inwardly when the end of a belt is pushed through the slit 6 between the rows of prongs Ill and I l, and then the sides of the hooks 9 are swung inwardly to secure the hooks to the belt. The resiliency of the cardboard or other sheet material will tend to hold the flaps I and 8 in the full line position indicated in Figure 2, but will permit them to be swung inwardly against the ends of prongs Ill and II when the belt end is inserted or in case anything strikes against the flaps. Consequently, these flaps I and 8 form a protecting means against entanglement of separate packages in a carton and provide protection against the injury of the fingers of a person attempting to remove one of the packages from a carton, and permit handling and cutting of sections to be used without disarranging the hooks on the support.

It will be understood that the support 5 while preferably made of cardboard may be made of other sheet material such as metal or plastic, but

cardboard will be preferred because of its cheapness and availability.

It will be understood upon a reading of the present specification that this applicant has provided a novel form of belt hook package which is in one piece and yet permits attachment of the hooks to a, belt without any slitting or fashioning operation being required. Heretofore in the art, separation of the package for attachment to the belt has required certain preliminary operations which the present invention avoids. This results not only from the use of a support made of a single iece of material but also from the fact that the open side of the polygonal support coincides with the open sides of the hooks.

Although it has been proposed in the prior art to make a support for a belt hook package in one piece, no prior art arrangement ha's 'pe'rinitted attachment of the package directly to the end of a belt without some preliminary cutting, slitting or disassembly operation which tended todisarrange the hook on the support, or else has required the removal of some portion of the support before the attachment could be carried out.

Having thus described the invention, what is claimed is:

1. A belt hook package comprising a one piece tubular member of sheet material, said member being of polygonal cross section, slit in its bottom side to form a pair of coextensive flaps and having belt hook supporting openings along its lateral sides, and a plurality of relatively spaced substantially U-shaped hooks having opposed inturned prongs at the free ends of the U, said hooks straddling the closed side of the tubular member and being mounted in the openings in said tube with the prongs passing through the wall of the tube and terminating behind the flaps and protected by the same.

2. A one-piece belt hook package comprising a tube-like member of closed polygonal cross-section and having a narrow longitudinal slit on one of its sides to provide a pair of coextensive flaps capable of flexin inwardly, and a plurality of spaced belt hooks having curved apex portions and opposed prongs, said hooks embracing the closed side of said tube with the sharpened ends of the hooks extending inside of the tube and behind the flaps formed by said slit.

ERWIN P. CLAUS.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,393,451 Nicholson is- ..l. 0017. 11, 1921 1,660,644 Coats ...1 Feb. 28, 1928 2,015,492 Messinger Sept. 24, 1935 

